First Kill
by Arithilim
Summary: How do you live in the shadow of death? Two scenes exploring the aftermath of atrocity.


A/N: Just a little oneshot I've been meaning to write for _forever_. Bewared of angst! Takes place after Snakehead, perhaps a year or so later. Erm, Jusmine, it's semi-stream-of-consciousness, so grammatical errors are likely intentional (Nyxie recommended I include that for you :P)…

**First Kill**

"_The horror!" – Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad_

**Death**

Alex stepped out of the plane and walked into the airport. He was back on British soil, he realized numbly. Normally it was a comfort, a feeling of being home safe, of having made it through once again, but all he could feel this time was tiredness.

He moved mechanically towards the baggage claim. Ignoring the crowds of people around him, he waited for his suitcase to appear. The voices and movement around him barely even registered. He simply stood there, alone in his own world. The distance between him and the happily laughing people surrounding him seemed insurmountable in that moment. Finally he saw his things and grabbed them, moving away towards the exit.

It was all rote, all automatic, a routine perfected by many trips back and by many journeys home. His mind was only on getting out the door –no thought was spared for anything else. It was better that way, the unthinking. Because if he thought…if he thought, then he'd have to remember. And that was unthinkable.

He stepped through the automatic doors and onto the sidewalk outside. The sun was out shining in clear, blue skies. He felt vaguely sick. A black car sped around the corner; the light glinted off the liquidly metal.

_The light glinted off the black metal of the barrel. The blazing sun beat down, it's harsh light burning, burning everywhere. He smelled sick and sweat and fear, and he clenched his hands around the gun in his hands._

Alex shook his head to clear it. No. He would not think about that. Stepping off the curb, he hailed the nearest taxi. He could afford it now after all, he thought sardonically.

He dully told the driver his address, and sunk into the seat, looking out the window, but not really seeing.

He just felt so … empty. So utterly numb. It surprised him in a way. He'd expected to feel something more: some anger, some disgust, some pain. Just to feel something. What he hadn't expected was this nothingness.

Perhaps there was pain, buried deep down. Perhaps it hurt so much that the body defended itself by numbing it to oblivion. Perhaps.

On the sidewalk outside, the pale afternoon light illuminated the fair hair of a passerby, and Alex thought of Yassen Gregorovich – that cold, hard man. He wondered what his first kill had been like; if there had been the same panic before followed by the emptiness after. He thought of what Ash had said about the Russian's childhood. Maybe he had been empty before, already deadened by the time John Rider first laid eyes on him.

Yassen was a killer. His existence had consisted of the exchange of human life for money. Alex thought he understood now. It wasn't just your target's life you were exchanging, it was your own. In killing others, you slowly killed off a bit of yourself each time. No wonder it paid well.

Yassen had killed for the money, Alex for the security of others. But what was the difference really? Blood was blood, and a bullet looked the same entering through flesh no matter how it was justified. And at the end of the day, they were just as dead, whether it was compensated with cash or defense. He was no better than Yassen.

The taxi pulled up to his house and Alex paid, and got out. He went silently in. It was empty and dark– Jack must have been out somewhere. He was glad. She shouldn't see him like this. Not even bothering to turn on a light, he slowly walked up the stairs, the familiarity of years practice guiding him, and paused in the doorway to his room.

He stared blankly at his room – the neatly done up bed, the chemistry textbook on his desk, the blue Chelsea poster on his wall – and found himself unable to comprehend this normalcy. Everything was in it's place, exactly how he'd left it. How could it have stayed the same when everything had changed?

His eyes found the framed picture of his parents that rested atop his bureau. They were smiling at the camera, so young, so vibrant, their image preserved for all time. Where they were now, there was no life. Only death. Ash had secured it for them

It hit him suddenly in that moment. Oh god he'd killed a man. He had pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger. Wouldn't his godfather be proud of him now? Wouldn't Rothman and Nile and all of Scorpia? He had finally become what they wanted him to be.

He began to shake uncontrollably. Oh god oh god oh god. His legs just collapsed and he fell to the ground crying. He smelled the metallic sent of blood, felt the blistering rays of the brutal sun. It was heat and light and red. He saw the surprise in the man's eyes as he sank to the ground; he thought that was the worst, the disbelief and the utter betrayal.

His stomach heaved, and Alex half ran half crawled into the bathroom, sinking down before the toilet. He was puking and crying and shaking, and all he could see was that gun firing and the ugly face of the man as he fell, twisted into shock, the blood sprayed on the side of the building behind him. When he had nothing left to throw up, he curled up into a ball shaking.

_Murderer_. The word echoed around his head. _Killer._ He had taken a life, murdered directly. The moment he'd avoided so long had come, and suddenly his endless struggle of resistance. It'd come all the same, and from here there was no return.

Alex didn't know how long he stayed there. Eventually the panic receded and he was left with a state of exhausted calm. Tentatively, he stood, walking over to the sink to clean himself up. He rinsed out his mouth and splashed water over his face. He turned the water off. His hands gripped the edges of the sink.

They said if you could look in the mirror, if you could look yourself straight in the eyes, you'd be alright. Slowly, he raised his head.

**Life**

The sunlight washed over the park, warming the bench where Alex sat a week later. It was a busy day, crowded with everyone who wanted to enjoy the good weather. In front of him two small boys were playing, running and tackling each other with an abandon that was almost painful for him to watch, all big blue eyes and cheeky smiles.

He would never be that innocent again. He knew that. And he was saddened by that. He had been changed so much that he could no longer recognize that small child in himself.

Killing that man was one of the worst things he'd ever done. It was a terrible act, a brutal one that Alex knew he'd never be free of. But he could not regret it. If the man had lived, thousands others, little boys like the ones before him, would have died.

It was a terrible fate really, to have to deal out death and judgment. How could he choose one live over another? It seemed so utterly wrong and he wished he'd never been put in that position. But it hadn't been his choice to make. Fate had chosen for him.

Well, fate, and his heritage. It was birthright to do this. That terrible day before he'd been only able to think of Ash and Yassen and Scorpia. But there was another he'd forgotten. John Rider too, had killed. And in that thought, Alex found hope. If his father, a brave, patriotic young man who believed passionately in honor and morality could find it in himself to kill when necessary and still live, then perhaps he could as well.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Perhaps the man had deserved to live. Perhaps Mrs. Jones should've been the one to die by his hand. He saw this choice before him, like two paths diverging in a wood. He could either second guess and hate himself until he succumbed to grief and despair, or he could learn to live with what he'd been called on to do.

He suspected there was no real way to reconcile murder with his humanity. There would always be a part of him deadened by the acts he'd committed. It was inevitable – you lost a bit of yourself when you killed. But he didn't have to lose himself entirely.

When the choice came to decide, he could only do what he judged to be right, and that was enough. It had to be.

Alex stood with a groan. It was getting late, and Jack would be wondering where he was. He reveled in the feel of the warm sun on his back as he left - in balance with this life, this death.

A/N: I'd love to hear what you thought :D Thanks goes to Jusmine for a little preliminary positive feedback, and to Nyxelestia who is awesome and helps with everything, and most importantly, manages to put up with me :D

Lots of stuff in this chapter isn't mine. Most importantly, the whole idea for this fic was spawned by an episode of Spooks in Series 3 where Adam talks Danny through his first kill. The mirror thing is all that. It's been running around my head for months now, and I'm very happy to finally share :D

There's also a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien's _Lord of the Rings_, the "two paths in a wood" is semi-borrowed from Robert Frost. The use of heat in Alex's his thoughts of killing was influenced by _L'Etranger (The Stranger)_ by Albert Camus And the last line is from the amazing poem "An Irish Airman Forsees His Death" by W.B. Yeats (don't be put off by the title, it's really quite excellent). And, of course, I do not own Alex Rider or the other characters, or the Alex Rider plot, nor were they created by me.


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